52 Week Challenge Week 17: Earth Appreciation

Like I mentioned in my last post I decided to give Sinful Colors Happy Ending a shot on its own. Result? Love it! It's a great grass green with a pretty shimmer, and application was a breeze. Since Earth Day was my next scheduled mani I topped this with some OPI DS Magic, which is a great blue shimmer (glass fleck maybe?) with some magenta in it. Amazing! Another color I need to wear as a full mani. I think this combo looks a bit like a giraffe pattern.
I also got Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB:2012 yesterday and I have another blue to try, along with my dusty hunt find of Kaleidoscope Him Out. I'm thinking blue skittle toes for my wedding. Is that strange? I want to wear the holo because that's what I wear for weddings. For the wedding I was in last week my toes were pink holo, China Glaze Don't Be A Square. My polish obsession actually started with holo wedding nails, Sand-erella! So it's only fitting I keep the holo goodness up. I'll let you all know what I decide to use. I may even post pictures of my feet.
Enough of my wedding nails stream of consciousness. Enjoy my Earth Day nails!

52 Week Challenge Week 16: Dotticure

I have no idea what the difference between polka dots and a dotticure is. So, I did polka dots using my dotting tools. As a base I used NOPI It's All About the Glam, another k-dash polish. It took four costs to get opaque and I've noticed that it's turning sort of pinkish and chipping/peeling off in an odd manner. It's super pretty though and a great alternative to a stark white like OPI Alpine Snow. The polka dots are Lex Cosmetics Peabow, a nice blurple. Sonia Kashuk Fatigued, a khaki green cream. Finally Sinful Colors Happy Ending, a bright green shimmer. I'm definitely going to have to give this color a go as a stand alone mani, it's purdy. As I was doing this mani I started to wonder why they are called polka dots. What do they have to do with dancing and music? Did other cultures not have patterns of dots other than eastern Europeans (the area I associate polka with)? Ah, the ramblings of a tired mind.
Enjoy!

52 Week Challenge Week 15: Easter

Easter! Always one of my favorite holidays growing up, all the pretty dresses and fun candy and egg dying. One year the day before Easter my mom was driving us to the grocery store and on the way there she ran over a rabbit crossing the road! I was so upset she ran I ER the Easter bunny!

Anyway, on to the mani. I used OPI A Dozen Rosas, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Sea and Be Seen, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear The Real Teal, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Posh Plum, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Yellow Kitty. I did a glitter gradient at the tips with OPI Servin' Up Sparkle. I'm liking the way this looks, I might do the glitter gradient for my wedding nails too. Without further ado:

52 Week Challenge Week 14: Striped

I went for a subtle striped mani for this challenge. I used a base of NYX Black Lace since I couldn't find my WnW. Don't care for the formula. I then used tape to make the stripes, they are Max Factor Fantasy Fire, Fingerpaints Flashy, Pure Ice Oh Baby, and ma.nish.ma Blaster, which proclaims itself holographic nail color. Hardly. It's very pretty nonetheless. Fantasy Fire has a blue/green/red multichrome, ma.nish.ma is a blue and pinkish/purple duochrome, Oh Baby is a blue/pink duochrome glitter and Flashy is a green/blue flakie. I'm please with the way this turned out. I do however need to get more acetone, I'm notorious for painting all over my fingers. Please enjoy!

52 Week Challenge Week 13: Ruffian

Ruffian! Scary! I can't freehand very well so I used hole reinforcements to make the circle at the cuticle of my nail. However I had a little mishap with my pointer finger, it wasn't quite dry when I put the reinforcement on so a huge chunk of polish peeled up. I did my best to smoosh it back down.
I chose to use yet another NOPI kardashian polish, Nothing Kim-pares to Blue. What a beautiful color! I love the shimmer in this, on the brush you can see some pink but I can't see it on the nail (granted I haven't been outside with it on yet.) For the reverse moon (is that what it is called?) I used a surprise I got yesterday from the UK! I got a back up of Max Factor Fantasy Fire and she also included Max Factor Ofyssey Blue. Another gorgeous blue with a purple shimmer. Not sure if I'd call it a duochrome or not but it's purdy!

52 Week Challenge Week 12: Skittles mani

For my first skittles mani I picked some new colors that recently came out that I also just got. Usually I'm months behind on getting new collections but this time I'm not too far behind. I chose three colors from the OPI Holland collection and two from Sinful Colors Cast Away collection. The colors are: I Have a Herring Problem-thumb, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI ?-pointer, Olympia-middle, Pedal Faster Suzi-ring finger, Neptune-pinky. My middle and ring are the Sinful and the rest are OPI. After I painted these and wore them to work I was bugged that only one nail had a cream finish so I painted Essie Pure Pearlfection over Olympia. Then promptly proceeded to mess up the nail on my picture hand. Hence you get a picture of my right hand! The last two pictures are topped with the Essie.
This mani feels very spring and Easter-y to me. It's different and a nice way to knock out five untrieds at once! That makes 17 from the past week I still need to wear, and a whole box full in my polish drawer.
Loves!

52 Week Challenge Week 11: St Patrick's Day

For my St. Patrick's Day mani I used Sinful San Francisco on all my nails and OPI Fresh Frog of Bel-Air on my ring as an accent. I love the shimmer in Sinful Colors San Francisco, it's green and blue and subtle. Enjoy!

52 week challenge week 9: vintage mani

Apparently this manicure was a way to save nail polish back in the day. Two things I learned about my nails from this one: you can only see a tiny bit of the moon on my ring and pinky fingers and my nails are yellow! Painting sideways was a very strange experience too as I didn't use French tape guidelines, I just free-handed this shiz. I actually like this style but in the future I'll either make sure I've buffed the yellow out of my nails or use a neutral base coat. This is two coats of Essie After Sex (which I bought solely for the name)

52 week challenge week 8: corset nails

Corset nails? The only thing I ever wear that laces up is shoes (are shoes?). I had to google images for this one. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White for the base, I free handed OPI Funky Dunky down the middle and used my dotting tools to make the grommets. I then used Sinful Colors nail art polish in black (I forgot the name and don't have the bottle) for the laces. I'm overall pleased with this but especially the thumb on my left hand.

52 week challenge week 7: valentine's day mani

My Valentine's mani started out with a base coat of OPI It's A Girl which was procured during an obsession with pale sheer pinks that would be wedding-worthy. This is definitely not the winner but it's a nice sheer color. I topped this with NOPI Love Your Life which is a clear base with pink heart glitters and small holo glitter. This is a PITA! I had to use a toothpick to get the heart shaped glitter out of the bottle and ended up with lumpy nails. The overall effect was subtle and cute except for the lumps.
Valentine's isn't a big holiday for me and the mister, we went out for sushi with the kid on Monday. I got him a box of chocolates and told him if he wanted to get me something a donut would be perfect. I'm still waiting for it lol!

52 week challenge week 6: half-moon mani

So I've skipped week 5, I don't have any newspaper. I may come back to it. Week six is half moon mani. I used two Sinful Colors, Cinderella and Blue By You. Cinderella is a pale blue with a pink shimmer, it's gorgeous. Blue By You is a darker blue with turquoise shimmer. My base was three coats of Cinderella. I then used hole reinforcements to mark off the moons and put one coat of BBY. The result is a shimmery half moon. My friend said I had Smurf nails lol!